


gambler's soap

by JohnnyVox



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-06
Updated: 2012-09-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:23:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/505916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnnyVox/pseuds/JohnnyVox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "On A Date"</p><p>A walk in the rain coming off the end of a case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	gambler's soap

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going write the walk in the park scene left out of YELL, but ended up doing this instead. It's largely inspired by bits of SIGN and NAVA, if that info's worth anything to you.
> 
> Title is a lyrical reference. (See bottom notes.)

They lost their man barely a block from the train station. Ask John Watson and he will readily admit--nay, _insist_ \--that it was his own fault. Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, will only shake his head and say with a wry smile that it is only his duty to solve these little mysterious, not to catch the men behind them.  _"What then would be left to the police to do?"_ is the last thing that he says before he takes his Watson on his arm, turning them both towards home.

The smell of rain is on the air, promising a wet night though the streets are dry as yet. The sun's halfway to setting as they walk away, and the detective seems, even for their earlier failures, remarkably content. There's a cool about the evening which seems to have infected him, or maybe it's the other way around. The doctor, by contrast, is plagued by an unwavering sense of guilt. The rain, when it does start to fall--softly at first--after only a few of moments' silent walking, feels like it falls harder on him than anywhere else in London. Holmes doesn't tell him that he is needlessly wallowing in self-pity, only holds bit tighter to him.

Presently the rain falls harder, and though Holmes has no inhibitions about walking through the evening shower, his companion treads heavily, leans on him noticeably. Holmes suggests a cab. More than once. But the doctor shakes his head, insists they're too close yet to bother, and if he doesn't say it he thinks more than anything that he'd walk through a hurricane if he could do so arm-in-arm with a happy Sherlock Holmes. And just as well, but it doesn't stop his weak leg, strained by the weather and from earlier exertion, from giving way mid-step and landing him in a puddle, pulling Holmes half-way down with him by their linked arms.

Helping him to stand, the detective offers again to hail a hansom, but the doctor shakes his head, insisting he's hardly worth the worry.

"Lean more heavily on me then, my boy," Holmes says, and Watson does as he's told, but he feels their pace slow, feels a degree of tension rise in his companion.

It strikes him all at once that he is tired and sore, now drenched to the bone, and has made himself a burden more than anything.

"You are needlessly hard on yourself," Holmes says abruptly, purposefully derailing that train of thought without even turning to look at him. His right hand reaches for the junction of their linked arms, idly toying with his companion’s sleeve. "I have high hopes that Lestrade will have his man by morning."

"You ought to be the one to apprehend him," the doctor retaliates. Then in a bitter mumble that barely makes it into the realm of the audible "--and would have been if not for my fumbling."

The detective scoffs, and the other man sighs, says  _"I_ am _of late the epicentre of ill-luck."_ which only serves to make his friend _outright laugh_  in a fashion nearly half as comforting as it is frankly irritating.

"Ah, _Watson_ ," he says, with a sigh that sounds a world away, and eyes like a wish that he could bring _him_ there too. "The rain dampens your spirit. You do yourself injustice."

And Watson would just as well continue his wallowing, but it's only too easy to let soft word sate his tired mind into submission instead.

He smiles half-heartedly at his detective. The man smiles back, slipping markedly into a rare moment of sensuality, gone so far even as to absently reach out to brush a lock of matted, rain-wet hair from his companion's forehead. Then that look of self-awareness flashes in his eyes and his hand is back at his side. He face angles itself skyward.

He muses: "The sun is only setting and the stars grace us already. See there how the moon creeps up behind the clouds, with the red stain of sunset behind it. The most un-poetic soul could see the beauty in it, Watson," pausing, for actual contemplation perhaps, though dramatic emphasis does seem more likely. "I for one see hope." He says at last.

It's fine by John Watson if Holmes wants to read hope and grace in beauty, though a bath, a pipe and the warmth of a fire seem more promising to him. Still, he doesn't mention it; They're close enough to home and he had meant to make calm and quiet company anyway. So home they reach, in due time, calm if wet and if tired, content, and with eyes flickering again towards the sky, now bereft of it's sunset saturation, washed instead with a blue-turning-black, Holmes slides his key into the lock of door 221b.

"Come," he says softly, taking his companion by the hand, and as he guides him through the doorway his voice drops in pitch so Watson alone hears him utter _"Allow me to remind you what good fortune you have yet."_

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, I was also pretty heavily inspired by this verse from the song Proof by Paul Simon:
> 
>  
> 
> [Half moon hiding in the clouds, my darling](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmzxGm8My2A)  
> [And the sky is flecked with signs of hope](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmzxGm8My2A)  
> [Raise your weary wings against the rain, my baby](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmzxGm8My2A)  
> [Wash your tangled curls with gambler's soap](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmzxGm8My2A)


End file.
